4: Intimacy part 1

Christin sat by the edge of the road, blankly staring in front of her. She missed her home world terribly. Sure, she hated it, but she missed all the familiar things she couldn't find here like internet. She had figured out a way to charge her ipod, so she still had the music she so desperately needed. She removed the fork she had clamped between her teeth and wound the wire connecting it to another fork which in turn was connected to a makeshift solar panel. One year had passed since her first Jump that landed her in this world. Things had been rough at first, but she adapted. She and Noa no longer fought, physically at least. Edward still yelled at her, but not as much as before. And she found that talking to Alphonse made her stomach hurt.

"If that keeps up I think I'm gonna die." She muttered.

"Are you talking to yourself again?" Alphonse's voice broke into her thoughts. She jumped and nearly fell over. "Sorry." He laughed.

"It's okay. I was just… never mind. What's up?" she replied, standing up and brushing dust and dirt off her clothes.

"Brother said that we're going to America next. Some bigwig over there is interested in the bomb, he said." Alphonse reported.

"Oh yeah… cuz without that how would the Americans bomb Japan?" she asked herself. "Good. I'm getting sick of all these French people with their escargot and croissants and annoying accents." In the past year, the four had traveled through Germany, England, and France trying to track down a uranium bomb. Christin just went along with it, having not much else to do. Alphonse waved and rejoined Edward at the bottom of a hill.

"Have a nice chat?" he asked, grinning.

Alphonse blushed. "Yeah…"

"She's too young for you." Edward said, still grinning.

"She's eighteen! That's at least four years older physically and one year younger in reality!" he cried, blushing redder.

"But in reality she was born in 1993. Its 1925 right now. Really, you're at least eighty some odd years older and she's not even supposed to exist yet." Edward replied. Alphonse looked at the ground, unable to come up with a response. He really liked Christin, a lot. Yes, she was more than a little weird and acted unbelievably immature sometimes and overly mature at others, but that was part of why he liked her so much. He never exactly knew what she was going to do or say next unless she told him, but she would always change her mind at the last minute. And there was the way she looked at him once in a while, like he reminded her of someone she knew but couldn't recall exactly who it was. She looked at Edward like that sometimes too. He didn't know why, but that look made him sad. He shrugged it off and wandered into the barn they had settled in for the night. He found a decent patch of hay and flopped on the ground.

"You okay, Al?" Christin's voice asked gently. He slowly opened his eyes and met her ever changing from green to brown to grey to blue eyes.

"I'm tired is all." He replied truthfully. They had spent most of the day walking and he was beat. Only now did he see the fatigue Christin masked. She hardly slept and ate only sparingly, claiming that she was fine, that she did that all the time in her old world, but he knew that there was bound to be side effects of one form or another. "What about you? You look awful."

"Well, to be completely honest I feel like shit." She grumbled. Alphonse laughed. He loved the way she used vulgar language. He had heard people curse and swear before, but she made it funny. "My head hurts and I keep coughing."

"Are you getting sick?" he asked, sitting up. Christin pondered for a moment then shook her head.

"I hardly ever get sick, but when I do, it's kinda major. Like there was this one time when I was fourteen or fifteen and I caught a cold, I was ill for a month and my hearing was all screwed up. Everything was muted, like I was wearing headphones all the time, and I almost stopped talking completely cuz I would kinda yell to make my voice sound normal to my own ears. It sucked." She recalled, smiling grimly. "So let's just hope it's a cold, not the swine flu or something." Alphonse smiled. Christin sneezed and started coughing. She groaned and fell on her back.

"You don't always need to be so strong, Christin." He said almost absently. She cast him a confused look.

"English?" she prompted, meaning she wanted a clearer explanation.

"I've seen how you act; always rather shut off from others like you're scared they're going to hurt you if you get too close. You keep pressing forward, even when you've clearly reached your limits. I've never seen you cry or express any emotion, really. Why?" he asked seriously.

"You got me," she chuckled dryly. "I guess I am scared of being hurt, because I was hurt in the past. Every time I tried to get close to someone, something would get in the way and they would leave. After a while I stopped trusting people. I had to be strong. My parents split when I was very young and I was forced to go back and forth, living with my mom, then with my dad. Because I was so attached to them, I cried every time I changed custody. My dad, bitch that he is, told me that I needed to be strong, that big girls don't cry. The strain of the divorce and the notion of never having a true home eventually took its toll on me. When I was fourteen, I tried taking my life."

"Why would you do something like that?" Alphonse inquired softly. Christin rolled onto her side so she faced him.

"Because I was hurting. I was in so much pain and agony and everything seemed so awful that I just wanted to end it. People who attempt suicide don't really want to end their lives; they just want to end whatever pain they're in. At that point in my life, death seemed to be the only solution to my problems." She said, pushing her sleeve up so Alphonse could see her scars. "I did get better – I no longer considered dying, but… I was very unstable. I kept cutting because I was still hurting. All these scars are from my suffering, though I no longer remember what exactly made me cut."

"I'm sorry… I…" Alphonse stopped, unsure how to continue. He watched as Christin pushed up her other sleeve, revealing a white bandage around her wrist.

"Then I came here. Everything was turned upside-down and inside-out and I didn't know what to do. Remember last week, how you and Edward found me by a river?" she asked. Alphonse nodded. "I had a break down. I tried so hard for so long to deal with everything by myself, to shoulder all my burdens alone, that I collapsed under the weight of it all and tried to take my life again… I know I should've told someone, but…" she stopped, her voice breaking. "I just lost some testosterone there." She giggled. Alphonse smiled. She said the same thing when his voice began cracking and explained that it was an inside joke between her and her old friends that they got from a T.V. show.

"It's okay. You'll get through this. I'll help you; we all will." Alphonse said, placing his hand over hers comfortingly.

"Thanks." Christin whispered, sitting up.

"You have hay in your hair." Alphonse noted. Christin chuckled and reached a hand to her hair, pulling out some hay. She took it out of the messy bun she pulled it in earlier and shook it out.

"Did I get it all?" she asked. Alphonse smiled and shook his head as he reached to help her.

"Your hair grew quite a bit." He said as he combed her hair with his fingers, raking out the hay. It now reached the middle of her back and he saw that she was not a natural blond because her roots were brown. He worked slowly, enjoying the way her silky locks felt against his skin.

Christin sat patiently as Alphonse helped with her hair. Normally she had a strict "don't touch me" rule, but occasionally she made an exception. She was glad that her back was turned towards him because she was blushing insanely. She had never really gotten involved with the opposite sex before, so any contact, no matter how trite, made her react. She repressed a shudder as his hand brushed against her skin and bit her lip to keep from making any uncalled for sounds.

"Done." Alphonse said, dropping his hands. Christin turned around and looked at him. He was gazing at her intently with his grey-brown eyes, his hair falling over his forehead. She simply stared back. Then, without any hesitation or warning, they kissed.

Don't kill me. i left it at a cliffhanger cuz i kinda got writer's block(that's also the reason it's kinda short). i've been sick so updating is kinda hard cuz i can't even walk without almost blacking out, let alone trudging to the computer. part 2 is next. please be patient. review and whatnot. ideas for CMAIF still needed.